BICOM

A senior US State Department official said yesterday that the US has received assurances from the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt that it will abide by the peace treaty with Israel. The statement by State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland came in spite of remarks earlier this week by Dr. Rashad Bayoumi, the deputy head of the Brotherhood in Egypt, who told the al-Hayat newspaper that the Brotherhood would not recognise Israel and intended to bring the peace treaty to a referendum in Egypt.

Referring to the Bayoumi interview, Nuland said that Bayoumi was only ‘one member’ of the Brotherhood, implying that his remarks did not represent the official position of the movement.

In recent Egyptian elections the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won around 40% of the list vote, while the ultra-conservative Salafi al-Nour Party took around 30%. The elections will determine the makeup of a parliament that will help draft a new constitution after decades of autocratic rule.